how true it is...

for the uninitiate, phd comics is a brilliant strip dedicated to life in grad school. this particular one from 9 years ago is particularly telling:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=39

here it is monday morning, and i wake up and notice that i'm out of breakfast food and nearly out of non-breakfast food in the kitchen. for the average person, grocery shopping would be in order, but then i started thinking about my week:

monday lunch: going to a seminar that includes free food
wednesday lunch: going to a meeting that includes free food
friday lunch: going to another seminar that includes pizza

further, i have lots of weekly things scheduled that while not free, happen every week and don't encourage grocery shopping:
monday dinner: eric and i usually go out to eat and catch up on life on tuesdays, but my tuesday is busy this week so it moved up a day
tuesday lunch: baxter and i always get together and eat at the student center for the same reason as i get together with eric
wednesday dinner: i teach until 6:30 and then have a 7-9pm study meeting at a coffee shop that makes good sandwiches, so that's generally wednesday dinner
thursday lunch: i have office hours from 10-12 and teach at 12:15, so i just grab something on the run on campus
thursday dinner: generally after the 5-6pm seminar my advisor runs, we all go out to eat.

finally, this week, tuesday, my weekly bible study crew is going out to eat to hang out for a week instead of just meeting at church, so that's one more meal covered out of the house.

so out of the 10 weekday meals (lunch/dinner for 5 days), 3 are free for me, and 6 are time commitments outside of the house... that leaves friday dinner the first chance to eat at home all week! grocery shopping? eh... it can wait another week.

is this healthy? not necessarily, but it's an appreciation of that that motivates strips like this one:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=582

hooray for free food and friends? happy monday all!